NURSE ANESTHESIOLOGY?

Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT

 

Who is responsible for your safety before, during, and after your surgery? Will it be a nurse or will it be a physician? This is an important question. Perioperative mortality is the third leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease and cancer. This statement appeared in the July 2021 issue of Anesthesiology, our specialty’s leading journal.  We’re all aware of the threats from heart disease or cancer, but most people know next to nothing about “perioperative mortality.” What is perioperative mortality? 

The word “perioperative” means “around the time of surgery.” It’s officially defined as the 30-day time period following surgery. “Mortality” means a patient death. Any patient who dies within 30 days of their anesthetic qualifies as a perioperative mortality. Very few patients die in the operating room, but significant numbers die in the weeks that follow. 

Why do patients die? A 2013 study in Anesthesiology states, “Despite the fact that a surgical procedure may have been performed for the appropriate indication and in a technically perfect manner, patients are threatened by perioperative organ injury. For example, stroke, myocardial infarction, acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute kidney injury, or acute gut injury are among the most common causes for morbidity and mortality in surgical patients.”  

The same article states, “a 30-day death rate of 1.32% in a U.S.-based inpatient surgical population for the year 2006. This translates to 189,690 deaths in 14.3 million (1 in 75) admitted surgical patients in one year in the United States alone. For the same year, only two categories reported by the Center for Disease Control—heart disease and cancer—caused more deaths in the general population.” Note this data was for inpatient surgeries.

The practice of anesthesiology is currently defined as “perioperative medicine.” At Stanford University, we’re called the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine. Perioperative medicine refers to the care of patients before surgery (preoperative), during surgery (intraoperative), and after surgery (postoperative). Each of these three areas is critical in assuring the lowest rate of complications. The American Board of Anesthesiology requires each candidate for board certification to pass an oral exam with clinical questions pertaining to preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative management. A board-certified physician anesthesiologist is therefore validated as an expert in all areas of perioperative medicine.

Who will make YOUR anesthetic decisions? Who will take care of you before, during, and after YOUR surgery? 

Most anesthetics are conducted by physician anesthesiologists. At times, physician anesthesiologists employ certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) to assist them in what is called the anesthesia care team (ACT) model. In this model, an MD anesthesiologist supervises up to four CRNAs who work in up to four different operating rooms simultaneously. All the responsibility in the ACT model resides with the supervising MD anesthesiologist.  

In a minority of states (19 of the 50 states) in America, governors made it legal for an unsupervised CRNA to provide anesthesia care. Are CRNAs and anesthesiologists equals? No, they are not. The difference in training is profound. CRNAs are registered nurses with a minimum of one year experience as a critical care nurse followed by, on the average, an anesthesia training period of three yearshttps://www.aana.com/membership/become-a-crna/minimum-education-and-experience-requirements  Physician anesthesiologists have to graduate from a four-year medical school or osteopathic  school, and then complete four additional years of internship and residency to become board-eligible anesthesiologists. The initial rationale for unsupervised CRNA care was that some rural communities had inadequate supplies of MD anesthesiologists, so governors made the decision to let nurses supply the anesthesia care unsupervised. These states include Arizona, Oklahoma, Iowa, Nebraska, Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Kansas, North Dakota, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, California, Colorado, and Kentucky. If you live in one of these 19 states, there’s no guarantee a perioperative physician anesthesiologist will care for you. 

Does the lack of a perioperative physician—an anesthesiologist—make a difference? Yes. 

Doctor J H Silber’s landmark study from the University of Pennsylvania documented that both 30-day mortality and failure-to-rescue rates were lower when anesthesia care was supervised by anesthesiologists, as opposed to anesthesia care by unsupervised nurse anesthetists. Silber wrote, “These results suggest that surgical outcomes in Medicare patients are associated with anesthesiologist direction, and may provide insight regarding potential approaches for improving surgical outcomes.”

In 2009, in California where I live and work, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law permitting independent practice for CRNAs. California physician anesthesiologists have been angry and concerned about this legislation change, but in the 12+ years since the law went into effect, the penetration of unsupervised CRNA practice in California was been minimal. This is despite the fact that there is an oversupply of CRNAs in the western United States.   

The traditional older models of physician-only anesthesia or the anesthesia care team are still the dominant modes of practice in California. 

Anesthesiology is the practice of medicine. Perioperative medicine is the practice of medicine. Anesthesiology and perioperative medicine are the domains of physicians. 

When you are a patient in an intensive care unit (ICU), all orders and decisions are made by physicians. Nurses are an essential part of ICU care, but management is by physicians. 

When you are a patient in an emergency room (ER), all orders and decisions are made by physicians. Nurses are an essential part of ER care, but management is by physicians.    

Why should your perioperative medicine be managed by non-physicians?

A major conflict is playing out in American medicine at this time. Beginning in 2025, all CRNAs will need a doctorate in nurse anesthesia to enter the field. Expect these nursing graduates to introduce themselves to you as “Doctor.” This new degree, called a “Doctor of Nursing Anesthesia Practice (DNAP),” is not a medical school diploma, and by no means is equivalent to the Medical Doctor (MD) degree held by physician anesthesiologists. Medical school admission in America is extremely competitive. For the 2020-2021 year there were 53,030 medical school applicants, and 22,239 applicants were admitted, meaning only 42% of medical school applicants matriculated. 

The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) has made the decision to deceive patients by formally changing its name to the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology, confusing the distinction between an MD anesthesiologist and a nurse anesthetist by adopting the word “anesthesiologist” to describe themselves. 

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) released this statement: “The American Society of Anesthesiologists condemns AANA’s organizational name change and encouragement of its members’ use of the term “nurse anesthesiologist,” which will confuse patients and create discord in the care setting, ultimately risking patient safety.” The ASA statement also said:

  • ASA, the American Board of Anesthesiology, the American Board of Medical Specialties and the American Medical Association affirm that anesthesiology is a medical specialty and professionals who refer to themselves as “anesthesiologists” must hold a license to practice medicine.
  • The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld a ruling in March 2021 by the New Hampshire Board of Medicine to limit the use of the term “anesthesiologist” to individuals licensed to practice medicine.
  • The Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs defines “anesthesiologist” as a doctor of medicine (M.D.) or doctor of osteopathy (D.O.) who has successfully completed an approved anesthesiology residency program.
  • The World Health Organization views “anesthesiology as a medical practice” that should be directed and supervised by an anesthesiologist.

Who will be taking care of YOU before, during, and after your surgery? As patients, you deserve to know, and you also deserve a physician managing your perioperative medicine. 

Before your surgery, you deserve a medical doctor.    

After your surgery, you deserve a medical doctor.    

And yes . . . during your surgery, you deserve a medical doctor of anesthesiology as well.

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The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:
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The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:
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READ ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM.

SERIALIZATION OF THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN… CHAPTER SIX

Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT

6) MR. DYLAN’S BLUES

Johnny and I ate breakfast together at 6:30 a.m. It was a complex meal—we split a six-pack of powdered sugar donuts from the Seven-Eleven and washed them down with two glasses of orange juice. The talc-like sugar dusted Johnny’s upper lip and the collar of his San Francisco Giants T-shirt. The kitchen was quiet as a library. The only sounds were our glasses clacking against the tabletop. It was Johnny’s first day of school and my first day to report to the local hospital. We were each journeying into the unknown, and the tension connected us.

I broke the silence. “Nervous?” I said.

“Nope.”

I didn’t believe it. Johnny’s eyebrows cast dark shadows, shielding his sunken eyes in blackness. I waited a minute for a sequel to his monosyllabic teenage offering, but no conversation followed.

“Want me to walk over there with you?” I said. “Make sure the paperwork is all OK for your transfer?”

Johnny scoffed. “Are you kidding? I’m 17 years old, Dad, not 7. I’ll figure it out.” He pushed away from the table and left the kitchen. I watched him pace back and forth across the living room floor like a skydiver awaiting his turn to jump out of the plane. Then he grabbed the front door knob and said, “I hope this school doesn’t suck, for both of our sakes.” The door slammed shut, and I looked out the front window to see Johnny hopping through last night’s frozen footprint holes in the snow. Steam rose from his wet hair. He wore a fleece turtleneck over a pair of cotton sweat pants, and no gloves, hat, or boots. I watched him bound two stairs at a time up the entryway of Hibbing High School.

I needed to be at Hibbing General Hospital before 7:30. I’d filled out all the necessary paperwork online. I’d already secured my medical staff privileges and my appointment to the anesthesia service. I wanted to arrive early to check out the facilities and meet the people I’d be working with in the coming months.

I dressed myself in a pair of Sorel boots, a North Face jacket, and one of Dom’s Minnesota Vikings knit caps. A puff of wind from the north scorched my face as I headed out into the winter morning. The stark chill woke me up faster than two espressos. The hospital was a three-block hike from Dom’s house, so it made sense to leave the battered BMW on the curb and walk to Hibbing General.

The hospital was an aging three-story building made of yellowed stone. The front doors were tall brown slabs flanked by two white Doric columns. I smiled at the polished surface of the brown wooden doors. I’d worked summers as a maintenance helper at the General during my college years. One day my foreman gave me a can of red paint and told me to paint these very doors. The next day the hospital administrator chewed our heads off for painting the hospital front doors the color of blood. He dispatched me to the front of the building with a paintbrush and a gallon of brown paint. The doors were still brown this very day.

I found the surgical locker room, a small space one-tenth the size of the men’s locker room at Stanford. I selected a set of scrubs off the shelf and changed out of my street clothes. At Stanford the scrubs were bright royal blue. In Hibbing the scrubs were faded green and looked like they’d been in use since the day I was born in this very building.

I was edgy, even though I was overqualified to work at this little community hospital. At Stanford every nurse, doctor, and janitor knew my name. Here I’d have to earn the respect of dozens of people who’d never heard of me. Medical careers don’t travel as well as business careers. A businessman in California could be promoted to a CEO job in Minneapolis, but doctors who moved from one state to another started at the bottom of the ladder, behind physicians who had reputations and referral patterns already established in the new community.

I entered the hallway of the operating room complex. Hibbing General had only six operating rooms, compared to the 40 rooms at Stanford. The schedule for the day was posted on a white board across from the central desk. My old med school classmate, Michael Perpich, the Chief of Staff at Hibbing General, was the surgeon working in operating room #1. Dr. Perpich was repairing an inguinal hernia on a 43-year-old man—a routine case. I could pop in and say hello without distracting Perp from his task.

I put on a surgical hat and mask and pushed open the door into O.R. #1. The operating room was small, a compact 30 feet by 30 feet. The linoleum floor showed brown stains from old iodine spills. The faded turquoise tile on the walls had witnessed thousands of hernia surgeries. Michael Perpich was bent over the patient’s abdomen. He saw me walk through the door, and said, “Nico Antone. The Tone. Get your ass over here.” A surgical mask covered his face, but I knew my friend was grinning.

“They said you needed some help to fix this hernia,” I said.

“You’re a God damned gas-passer. You couldn’t fix this hernia if I held the book open for you.”

“I’m here to see if your hands shake as much as they used to, Perp.”

“I came here straight from the card room at the Corner Bar at dawn. Never felt better.”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Did you guys get situated over at Dom’s?”

“We did. Johnny wasn’t thrilled about waking up at 6 a.m., but he ran up the high school steps two at a time this morning.”

“So he’s a gunner. Just like his dad.”

“I got by.”

“You opened a textbook once a week in med school, and you still finished number one in our class. I can’t believe you came back. When you left for California you said never wanted to see a snowflake again.’”

“Things change, Perp. My kid needs an upper-Midwest high school diploma.”

“California kid comes to the wilderness to go to the head of the class, eh? I’ll tell you one thing: the Hibbing teachers will shape him up. I had sergeants in the Army who were more mellow than the Hibbing faculty.”

The scrub tech, a blonde woman wearing too many layers of blue eye shadow, said, “My son is a sophomore. He studies four hours every night.”

“Nico, meet Heidi, my right-hand woman,” Perpich said. “She’s my assistant, my psychotherapist, and the encyclopedia of all gossip great and small in the village of Hibbing.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“Heidi, this is Dr. Nicolai Antone, a welcome addition to the anesthesia staff. Dr. Antone and I went to med school together. He was an anesthesiologist in California, but now he’s one of us, the slightly-better-than-average staff of Hibbing General. So you left Alexandra behind?”

“I did.”

“Good move. Not much up here for princesses.”

“You’re married, Dr. Antone?” Heidi said.

“I am. My wife is back in California.”

She fluttered mascara-laden eyelashes at me and said, “Welcome to Hibbing General. I look forward to working with you.”

Perpich looked up toward the head of the operating room table and said, “Bobby, did he get his antibiotic?”

A wisp of a man—narrow and bony—stood at the head of the operating room table in the anesthesia cockpit of machines, monitors, intravenous drips, and drug cabinets. The man said, “She did. One gram of Kefzol at 7:45.”

“Nico, I want you to meet Bobby Dylan, our Director of Nurse Anesthesia,” Perpich said.

My head snapped back. I wondered if I trusted my ears. Bobby Dylan? The same name as the legendary musician? Here in Hibbing?

The nurse anesthetist ignored Perpich’s cordial introduction and said nothing to me. I was miffed. Who did this guy think he was? He was only a nurse anesthetist. Why the ingratiating attitude toward me, a board-certified anesthesiologist physician?

It was a small hospital, and despite my negative first impression I felt compelled to meet my fellow anesthesia colleague. I walked around the operating room table and entered the anesthesia station. A blue paper hat and mask covered Dylan’s face. His sole facial features were the recessed caves that housed his glossy fish eyes, and the speckled black and gray eyebrows that floated above them.

I extended my hand and said, “Greetings. I guess we’ll be working together.”

Dylan turned his back on me. The beep, beep, beep of the patient’s pulse rate hung between us. He reached over and turned the knob on the anesthesia machine that titrated the oxygen flow. He coughed twice—loud, harsh, barking sounds, and said, “We opted out here, Mac.”

“What?” I said. I wasn’t sure what I had just heard.

“We opted out,” Dylan repeated. He still wasn’t looking at me. He picked up his clipboard and made some notations on the patient’s chart with a pen.

I was getting more and more pissed off. My first impressions were confirmed. This guy was a dick. I didn’t care if this was Dylan’s anesthetic, his operating room, and his hospital. I was unaccustomed to this degree of condescension within two feet of an anesthesia machine. He turned up the intravenous propofol infusion and continued to ignore me, even though I was close enough to smell the staleness of his body odor.

I checked the settings on the anesthesia machine and monitors, looking for some sign that Dylan was as incompetent as an anesthetist as he was as a conversationalist. He was using routine concentrations of standard anesthetic drugs. The ECG, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation numbers all showed normal values. Dylan wasn’t a doctor, but at the moment he was delivering a routine anesthetic in a safe fashion.

I thought to myself, Fuck you, you dirtball. If this Bobby Dylan character wanted to be left alone, I was going to leave him alone. I said, “Hey Perp, I’ll catch you when your case is done, OK?”

“Will do. I’ll meet you in the lounge. Give me 30 minutes.”

“See you there.” My feathers were ruffled. It was great to see Michael Perpich again, but if my initial contact with this nurse anesthetist was any indication, my welcome in the Hibbing medical community was going to be as chilly as a January dawn. I made my way to the operating room lounge, a stark room with four walls of undecorated peach-colored wallboard. The sole furnishings were two long tables and a dozen chairs. All the chairs were empty. Sections of the Duluth News Tribune and the Hibbing Daily Tribune were strewn over the tabletops. The aroma of fresh brewed coffee filled the air. I poured myself a cup and selected a glazed doughnut from a platter.

I felt like a midcareer misfit, stuck in somebody else’s workplace. I missed Stanford. On a professional level, this move to Minnesota looked to be a near-death experience for me.

Michael Perpich’s clogs hammered the floor when he walked in. He pinched the back of my neck, snatched two doughnuts for himself, and plopped down in a chair across from me. “It’s great to see you, Tone,” he said. “I still can’t believe it.”

I hadn’t sat eye to eye with Perp for years. With his surgical cloaking removed, he looked ten years older than me. The top of his head had more dandruff than hair, and the creases around his nose and mouth were deep and long. His smile was genuine, and I chose to disregard the ancient appearance of the only acquaintance I had within a thousand miles.

“Glad you’re here,” I said. “I’m counting on you to be my lifeline at this place.” I waved my hand at the desolate room. “Does anybody else work here?”

“Of course. We have a full staff, like any other community hospital, but we’re light on anesthesiologists. Your timing is perfect. Our last two anesthesiologists retired and moved to the Sun Belt in November. We have six nurse anesthetists, but for tough cases we need an M.D. anesthesiologist in town. Now we’ve got you.”

“So the rest of the anesthesia staff is all nurses?”

“Yep. Six nurse anesthetists. They’re a solid group. I haven’t had too many problems with them.”

I was unconvinced. Nurse anesthetists were registered nurses with a year or more of intensive care unit experience, followed by two or three years of training in a nurse anesthesia program. They learned how to anesthetize patients, but they weren’t medical doctors. In some hospitals, anesthesiologists worked with nurse anesthetists in anesthesia care teams, a team model in which one M.D. anesthesiologist might supervise four nurse anesthetists working in four separate operating rooms. Because this hospital had no anesthesia doctors, the nurse anesthetists were working unsupervised.

“What’s the deal with the Bobby Dylan guy?” I asked. “He stopped one step short of open hostility. Is he a prick, or what?”

“Sometimes he is.”

“He didn’t give me the time of day.”

“It’s a turf thing. This is his hospital. You’re an outsider. The guy doesn’t want you here.”

“He’s a nurse. How does he get off giving me a hard time?”

“Minnesota is an opt-out state, Nico. The Minnesota governor opted out of the requirement for a medical doctor to supervise nurse anesthetists. Bobby Dylan can give anesthesia here, just the same as you can, even though he’s not a doctor.”

We opted out here, Mac. The words Dylan had uttered to me. Opted out.

“So it’s legal here for a nurse anesthetist to give an anesthetic without being supervised by a physician?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s substandard care, if you ask me, and it still doesn’t make this Bobby Dylan guy a doctor. If you had enough physician anesthesiologists in town, would you still let jokers like him give anesthetics alone, or would you replace him with a doctor?”

Perpich threw up his hands. “That’s never going to happen, so who cares? Dylan has been here a long time. He hasn’t had any deaths, he’s kept his nose clean, and he’s not going anywhere.”

“Why is he named Bobby Dylan? That can’t be for real.”

Perpich shrugged again. “I don’t know what his real name is, and I don’t care. He showed up in Hibbing 8 or 10 years ago, and his license and paperwork all identified him as Bobby Dylan. I asked him if that was his real name or if he’d changed his name.”

“And he said?”

“He said his name was Bobby Dylan. Period. He dodged any questions about his past. He was a nurse anesthetist in the Afghanistan War. He’s got a wife and a daughter. He plays guitar and sings at a bar downtown. Plays all the original Dylan songs. People tell me he’s pretty talented. Maybe he was a huge Bob Dylan fan and he just wanted to move to Dylan’s hometown, take Dylan’s name, and get a job here. If so, he’s done all three.”

I shook my head. “That’s pretty weird stuff.”

“It gets more weird. He bought the old Zimmerman house.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“He’s a psycho,” I said.

Perpich’s eyes twinkled. “Up here, there are a lot of characters. Get used to it. He’ll grow on you, once you accept the fact that he’s your peer.”

“My peer? I’ll never accept that.”

As if summoned by their conversation, Bobby Dylan came in through the doorway, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat in the opposite corner of the room. He peeled off his surgical hat to reveal a fuzzball of curled black and gray hair. He took out a pen and started filling out a crossword puzzle from the morning paper. His mouth stretched into a long yawn. It was just another day for him. My presence was of no consequence.

“I’m going to make rounds on my patients upstairs on the surgical wards,” Perpich said. “Will you be home tonight?”

“Where else would I be?”

“I’ll drop by. I’ve got some housewarming presents for you.”

“I hope it’s a digital video recorder. Dom doesn’t have one.”

“No DVR. Just make sure you’re hungry.”

“Sounds good. See you later.”

Right after Perpich left, I heard a rumbling voice behind me say, “Doctor Antone?”

I turned. It was Mr. Dylan. His facial expression was a cross between a smirk and an all-knowing smile.

“Yes?” I said, puzzled at the encounter.

“I dissed you back there in the operating room. Sorry about that. I was concentrating on my patient, and no one told me you were coming to town. I expect this place is big enough for both of us. No hard feelings?”

I was suspicious. The curl of Dylan’s upper lip seemed to say, I don’t like you one bit, but I’ll pretend that I do just to fuck with you. Before I could answer, he sat on the tabletop in front of me and asked, “Why does a California guy like you move to the Iron Range?”

“I grew up here. I missed the ice fishing and deer hunting.”

“Bullshit.”

“My son transferred into the 11th grade. We want him to graduate from Hibbing High.”

“Let me guess. You think he’ll be the smartest kid in town.”

“I have no idea. We just got here.”

Dylan twirled a wisp of his moustache between his fingers and thumb. “I’ll bet $1000 you and your kid are gone by next January. This ain’t no place for boys from Californ-eye-aye. No place at all.”

“We’ll adjust.”

“You OK working here, where nurse anesthetists are your equals?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “I’m not sure nurses and doctors are equal. I expect I’ll get used to the fact that nurses can give their own anesthetics here.”

“Of course you will. Just remember, you’ve got no power over me here. No power at all.” Dylan winked and said, “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’ve got to go make me some money.”

He walked away, and his words echoed in my ears: No power over me at all. My first impression was reconfirmed. This Bobby Dylan was trouble.

It was break time, and the lounge was filling up. An attractive woman sat down at the adjacent table. She had the palest of green eyes that precisely matched the color of her scrub shirt. She had flawless skin and adorable dimples, and the knack of smiling nonstop as she chatted.

I smiled to myself, and forgot about the onerous Mr. Dylan. The sight of a beautiful woman trumped all of life’s ills.

It really did.

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

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Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

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TEN REASONS NURSE ANESTHETISTS (CRNAs) WILL BE A MAJOR FACTOR IN ANESTHESIA CARE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT

 

My debut novel, The Doctor and Mr. Dylan features a nurse anesthetist in the starring role of Mr. Dylan. Nurse anesthetists have provided anesthesia care in the United States for nearly 150 years, and CRNs will be a major factor in the future.

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In the beginning, anesthesia care for surgical patients was often provided by trained nurses under the supervision of surgeons, until the establishment of anesthesiology as a medical specialty in the U.S. in the 20th century.

Here are 10 reasons why certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) will be a major factor in anesthesia care in the 21st century:

1. Rural America is dependent on CRNAs to staff surgery in small towns underserved by MD anesthesiologists. CRNAs are involved in providing anesthesia services to about one-quarter of the American population that resides in rural and frontier areas of this country. Despite a significant rise in the number of anesthesiologists in recent years, there is no evidence that they are attracted to practice in rural areas.
2. Obamacare will increase the demand for mid-level healthcare providers, e.g. nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurse anesthetists. These mid-level providers are perceived as a cheaper alternative to MD health care.
3. Seventeen states have opted out of the requirement for physician supervision of CRNA anesthetics. These states are Iowa, Nebraska, Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Kansas, North Dakota, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, California, Colorado, and Kentucky. In these states, it’s legal for a CRNA to give an anesthetic without a supervising anesthesiologist or surgeon.
4. For cost-saving reasons, hospital administrators will consider the lower hourly rate charged by CRNAs to be a saving over MD anesthesia care rendered by anesthesiologists alone.
5. Future trends such as the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Perioperative Surgical Home or bundled payments to Accountable Care Organizations will seek out the cheapest way to manage anesthetic populations. A likely economic model for a healthy patient population is the anesthesia care team, e.g. a 4:1 ratio of four CRNAs supervised by one MD anesthesiologist. This model can be used to staff four simultaneous surgeries on four healthy patients having simple surgical procedures. More complex procedures such as open-heart surgery, brain surgery, major vascular surgery, or emergency surgery will be best served by MD anesthesia care. Extremes of age (e.g. neonates or very old patients) and patients with significant medical comorbidities will be best served by MD anesthesia care.
6. Certain regions of the United States, particularly the South and the Midwest, are already entrenched with anesthesia care team models of 3:1 or 4:1 CRNA:MD staffing because of anesthesiologist preference. An MD anesthesiologist’s income can be augmented by supervising three or four operating rooms with multiple CRNAs simultaneously. These physicians will have little desire to rid themselves of nurse anesthetists and to personally do only one case at a time by themselves.
7. The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) presents a strong, well-funded lobby which promotes the continuing and increasing role of CRNAs in medical care in the United States.
8. The educational cost for a registered nurse to become a CRNA is significantly less than the cost of training a board-certified MD anesthesiologist. The median cost of a public CRNA program is $40,195 and the median cost of a private program is $60,941, with an overall median of $51,720.
9. A registered nurse can significantly increase their income by becoming a CRNA. A registered nurse with one year of intensive care unit or post-anesthesia care unit experience can become a CRNA with 2-3 years of CRNA schooling. The average yearly salary of a CRNA in America in 2011 was $156,642.
10. The increasing starring role of CRNAs in American fiction ☺. (See The Doctor and Mr. Dylan, below)

After perusing this list one might ask, are CRNAs and anesthesiologists equals?
No, they are not. Anesthesiologists are doctors, and their training of four years of medical school followed by a minimum of four years of anesthesia residency makes them specialists in all aspects of surgical medicine.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists’ STATEMENT ON THE ANESTHESIA CARE TEAM states “Anesthesiology is the practice of medicine including, but not limited to, preoperative patient evaluation, anesthetic planning, intraoperative and postoperative care and the management of systems and personnel that support these activities. In addition, anesthesiology includes perioperative consultation, the management of coexisting disease, the prevention and management of untoward perioperative patient conditions, the treatment of acute and chronic pain, and the practice of critical care medicine. This care is personally provided by or directed by the anesthesiologist.” (Approved by the ASA House of Delegates on October 26, 1982, and last amended on October 16, 2013)

Doctor J H Silber’s landmark study from the University of Pennsylvania documented that both 30-day mortality and failure-to-rescue rates were lower when anesthesia care was supervised by anesthesiologists, as opposed to anesthesia care by unsupervised nurse anesthetists. This study has been widely discussed. The CRNA community dismissed the conclusions, citing that the Silber study was a retrospective study. In a Letter to the Editor published in Anesthesiology, Dr. Bruce Kleinman wrote regarding the Silber data, “this study could not and does not address the key issue: can CRNAs practice independently?”

I’m not a fan of CRNAs working alone without physician supervision. In both my expert witness practice and in the expert witness practice of my anesthesia colleagues, we find multiple adverse outcomes related to acute anesthetic care carried out by non-anesthesiologists.

CRNAs will play a significant role in American healthcare in the future. That significant role will be best played with an MD anesthesiologist at their right hand.

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

CAN YOU CHOOSE YOUR ANESTHESIOLOGIST?

Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT

You choose the car you drive, the apartment you rent, the smart phone in your pocket, and the flavor of ice cream among 31 flavors at Baskin-Robbins.  Most of you  choose your family physician, your dermatologist, and your surgeon.  But can you choose your anesthesiologist?

 

It depends.

To answer the question, let’s look at how anesthesia providers are assigned for each day of surgery.

Who makes the decision as to which anesthesia provider is assigned to your case? The anesthesia service at every hospital or healthcare system will have a scheduler.  This scheduler is an individual (usually an anesthesiologist) who surveys the list of the surgical cases one day ahead of time.  There will be multiple operating rooms and multiple cases in each operating room. Each operating room is usually scheduled for six to ten hours of surgical cases.  The workload could vary from one ten-hour case to eight shorter cases.  The total number of operating rooms will vary from hospital to hospital.  Typically each room is specialty-specific, that is, all the cases in each room are the same type of surgery.  The scheduler will an assign appropriate anesthesia provider to each room, depending on the skills of the anesthesia provider and the type of surgery in that room.

There are multiple surgical specialties and multiple types of anesthetics.  An important priority is to schedule an anesthesia provider who is skilled and comfortable with the type of surgery scheduled.  An open-heart surgery will require a cardiac anesthesiologist.  A neonate (newborn) will require a pediatric anesthesiologist.  Most surgeries, e.g., orthopedic, gynecologic, plastic surgery, ear-nose-and-throat, abdominal, urologic, obstetric, and pediatric cases over age one, are bread-and-butter anesthetics that can be handled by any well-trained provider.

Each day certain anesthesiologists are “on-call.”  When an anesthesiologist is on-call, he or she is the person called for emergency add-on surgeries that day and night.  The on-call anesthesiologist is expected to work the longest day of cases, and the scheduler will usually assign that M.D. to an operating room with a long list of cases.  If you have emergency surgery at 2 a.m., you will likely be cared for by the on-call anesthesiologist.  A busy anesthesia service may have a first-call, a second-call, and a third-call anesthesiologist, a rank order that defines which anesthesia provider will do emergency cases if two or three come in simultaneously.  A busy anesthesia service will have on-call physicians in multiple specialties, i.e., there will be separate on-call anesthesiologists for cardiac cases, trauma cases, transplant cases, and obstetric cases.

Different hospitals have different models of anesthesia services.  In parts of the United States, especially the Midwest, the South, and the Southeast, the anesthesia care team is a common model.  An anesthesia care team consists of both certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNA’s) and M.D. anesthesiologists.  For complex cases such as cardiac cases or brain surgeries, an M.D. anesthesiologist may be assigned as the solitary anesthesia provider.  For simple cases such as knee arthroscopies or breast biopsies, the primary anesthesia provider in each operating room will be a CRNA, with one M.D. anesthesiologist serving as the back-up consultant for up to four rooms managed by CRNA’s.

In certain states, the state governor has opted out of the requirement that an M.D. anesthesiologist must supervise all CRNA-provided anesthesia care.  In these states, a CRNA may legally provide anesthesia care without a physician supervising them.  Currently, the seventeen states that have opted out of physician supervision of CRNA’s include Alaska, California,  Colorado, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin.  In some hospitals in these states, your anesthesia provider may be an unsupervised nurse anesthetist, not a doctor at all.

Some hospitals have only M.D. anesthesiologists who personally do all the cases.

Academic hospitals, or university hospitals, have residents-in-training who administer most of the anesthetic care.  In academic hospitals, faculty members supervise anesthesia residents in a ratio of one faculty to one resident or one faculty to two residents.

Can a surgeon request a specific anesthesia provider?  Yes.  At times, a surgeon may have certain anesthesia providers that he or she requests and uses on a regular basis.  It’s far easier for a surgeon to request a specific anesthesia provider than it is for you to do so.

The assignment of your anesthesia provider is usually made by the scheduler on the afternoon prior to surgery, and you the patient will have little or no say in the matter. If you are like most patients, you have no idea who is an excellent anesthesia provider and who is less skilled. You won’t find much written about anesthesiologists on Yelp, Healthgrades, or other consumer social-media websites.  Most patients don’t even remember the name of their anesthesia provider unless something went drastically wrong.  Such is the nature of our specialty.  Your anesthesia provider will spend a mere ten minutes with you while you’re awake, and during those ten minutes your mind will be reeling with worries about surgical outcomes and risks of anesthesia.  The anesthesia provider’s name is not a high priority.  After the surgery is over, anesthesiologists are a distant memory.

What if your next-door neighbor is an anesthesiologist whom you respect?  What if you are scheduled for surgery at his hospital or surgery center, and you want him to take care of you?  Can this be arranged?  Most likely, it can.  The best plan for requesting a specific anesthesiologist is to have the anesthesiologist work the system from the inside, several days prior to your surgery date.  He will talk to the scheduler and make sure that he is assigned into the operating room list that includes your surgery.  You’ll be happy and reassured to see him on the day of surgery, and he’ll likely be happy to take care of you.  Anesthesiologists love to be requested by patients.  It makes us feel special.  Doctors aspire to be outstanding clinicians, and a request from a specific patient validates that we are unique.

As you can see, the decision of who is assigned to be the anesthesia provider for your surgery is a multifaceted process. Your best strategy for requesting a specific anesthesiologist is to (1) contact the anesthesiologist yourself and ask that he or she contact anesthesia scheduling and make sure that he or she is scheduled to do your case, or (2) contact your surgeon and ask your surgeon if they can arrange to have the specific anesthesia provider that you request.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

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*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited